Group urges teens to 'put it down,' drive safely

BOCA RATON — — Teenagers might not weigh the danger of texting, tweaking the radio or horsing around in a car, say people who see the deadly consequences of such behavior.

So all this week, they put it in stark terms.

"You kill somebody in that car, your nightmare has just begun," said Lt. Michael Reardon of the Palm Beach Sheriff's Office. In his job, he cleans up fatal crash scenes and tells families they've lost loved ones.

Reardon spoke at Spanish River Community High School on Thursday to a room full of teenagers, all newly or soon-to-be-licensed drivers. At his side were a trauma nurse, a lawyer, a highway patrolman and a grieving family, all of whom know what can happen when cars crash.

The Dori Slosberg Foundation, a local safe-driving nonprofit, is pulling together teams of first responders and victims to give talks, which they're calling "Put It Down," at high schools throughout South Florida. On Wednesday, they visited Coral Springs High School.

They spared no details.

State Rep. Irv Slosberg, D-Boca Raton, and his daughter, Emily, described the 1996 wreck that claimed Dori and four other Boca Raton teenagers. Emily, speaking at her alma mater, recalled her injuries, her broken bones, the tree branches that punctured her face, the moment she found out her twin sister was dead.

"I would've had three daughters graduate from Spanish River," the lawmaker told the students.

A trauma nurse, David Summers of St. Mary's Medical Center, told them how asphalt mangles flesh. Brian F. LaBovick, a personal injury lawyer in Palm Beach Gardens, said that even if you don't die, paying the damages for a deadly crash can be ruinous.

In parental tones, the adults in the room pleaded with the students to drive safely, wear a seat belt, don't text. If they had more time, Reardon said, he'd show pictures of crash scenes and victims' bodies, which tend to have greater effect.

The chilling rhetoric, they said, is meant to jolt youths into developing good driving habits in an effort to curb the most common cause of death for driving-age teens in Florida, the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles reports.

In 2010, 144 teens died and 18,543 were injured from cars.

Slosberg intends to reintroduce two bills that died this year. One would raise the driving age to 18 from 16, and the other would ban those under 18 and bus drivers from using their phones behind the wheel.

"Until you actually hear true details from multiple sources saying things like, 'there's trees sticking out of her ears,'" said sophomore Grace Sauers, 15, only then does it click: "It can happen to you, and it can happen to your family."

But most people will never really understand the stakes of poor driving, Reardon said — unless there's a wreck.